“Listening is everything.” Virginia Trioli on what makes a great interview

She’s a formidable presence. A skilled broadcaster and Walkley Award-winning journalist who’s held Prime Ministers to account and had countless other pollies squirming in their seats in her dogged pursuit of the facts.

It’s hard to believe Virginia Trioli was once an inexperienced broadcaster, trying to forge her path.

In the latest episode of the Food Bytes with Sarah Patterson podcast (due to land tomorrow), I had the great pleasure of interviewing the former ABC Radio Melbourne Mornings presenter, ahead of Season 2 of Creative Types with Virginia Trioli on ABC TV.

Exploring some of Australia’s greatest artistic minds – from visionary filmmaker George Miller to acclaimed designer Jenny Kee – Trioli finds out what makes them tick.

And she unearths gold – her interviews a masterclass in the art of listening.

“Listening is everything,” Trioli says.

Referring to my interview with her, Trioli says “You’ve done your research, you’ve come into this conversation, and I’m sure you’ve got a list of questions in front of you.” (She’s right. I have.)

“I don’t doubt that they’re really great questions, and no doubt you’ll ask a whole lot of them,” she continues.

“But you know, and I know, that the best conversation we can possibly have here is by listening to what I’m saying now. Your next question comes from that.”

“That was the lesson that I had to learn and teach myself over decades now of doing live radio and live television.”

Trioli talks of the humility that comes with putting our prepared questions to one side and saying ‘Hang on a minute. I didn’t know about that. What do you mean?’ Or ‘Explain that to me. Or ‘Sorry, I don’t understand. What does that mean?’

“I can see when interviewers do that, and I can see when interviewers don’t do that,” she says.

Having also hosted Drive on 774 ABC Radio Melbourne, the Morning program on 702 ABC Sydney, as well as TV programs including Q & A, ABC News Breakfast and Lateline, Trioli can certainly relate.

“I get it,” she says, citing Lateline as an example.

“One of the great privileges of my life was presenting that show. And that was just the top of the tree – you had to be on your game, (you were) interviewing ministers and Prime Ministers.”

“(There’s) a part of your ego that goes ‘I don’t want to be the person who says to the entire country ‘Sorry, I don’t know about that,’ or ‘What do you mean?’”

“But in the moment, that actually is probably going to get you one of the best responses and answers in the entire interview, if you can put your ego aside and just listen.”

Are we in radio afraid of silence? The dreaded prospect of ‘dead air?’

So often we’re tempted to jump in and fill that space, to avoid feeling awkward. But as Trioli points out, we can use that silence to our advantage.

“And sometimes that silence is the answer,” she says. “Sometimes you just need to lean into it.”

“When you’re an inexperienced broadcaster – and I was certainly that for many, many years – you’re anxious. You’re nervous.”

“But the worst thing you can do is fill that space.”

Then there’s the matter of the question that seems to go on forever.

We all know the one.

“There are sports reporters who you’ll hear their disembodied questions usually at press conferences, say, after Formula One races or tennis games,” Trioli says.

“I’m sitting there sort of white-knuckling it, going ‘Just stop. Ask your question, and STOP!’”

Not only does the listener have no idea what the question actually was, the journalist has taken so long to spit it out that the person being interviewed has already been let off the hook.

“There’s a babbling anxiety that sort of comes with just letting the question go,” says Trioli.

“You’ve got to formulate your best possible question, find your shot and just see how it lands.”

It might take some guts, but it could well end up being the best interview you’ve ever done.

Season 2 of Creative Types With Virginia Trioli premieres Tuesday 1 April 8.30pm on ABC iview and ABC TV.

Photos supplied.